Sports

A shake-up of sailing

Sea change

FIRST won in 1851 by a schooner called “America” from the fledgling New York Yacht Club, which beat all other challengers for a trophy put up by Britain's Royal Yacht Squadron in a race around the Isle of Wight, the America's Cup remains sport's oldest trophy. Recently, though, it has lost some of its shine. The last race, in 2010, was marred by a series of high-profile lawsuits over the rules, while each team tried outspending the other on its yacht. None of that seemed very sporting, and it reinforced the perception that sailing is a pastime for rich men with big egos. It does not help that Oracle Racing, the defending champion, is owned by Larry Ellison, one of America's most outspoken and highly paid chief executives.

Mr Ellison is hoping to win over the masses, however, with the biggest overhaul of the America's Cup in its 160-year history. As well as the trophy, the winner gets to determine when, where and how the defence of the cup will happen. It is this right that led to such acrimonious litigation in 2010, when Alinghi, the defending champion-owned by Ernesto Bertarelli, a Swiss-Italian billionaire-produced a set of rules that would have put any challenger at a clear disadvantage. But Mr Ellison has been using his privileges in an attempt to create a more sportsmanlike and appealing contest. Scheduled to take place in San Francisco in September 2013, the next race promises to be the fairest and most exciting America's Cup in years.

For a start, it will be supervised by an independent organisation called the America's Cup Race Management (ACRM). The defending champion and the challenging team will together choose ACRM's director. Plans have also been drawn up to ensure that race management stays independent in future. That should give sponsors and teams more incentive to make a long-term commitment to the sport.

The most significant change, though, is a requirement that competing yachts be the same design. While rules permit some variations between vessels, the idea is to make the race outcome more dependent on the skills of the sailors than the spending power of the teams' owners. These new boats will be very different from the heavy, single-hull yachts mainly used in the past. Instead, each competitor will race in a giant catamaran measuring 72 feet (22m) long (and called an AC72, for short). Requiring a crew of just 11, compared with the 17 needed to manage a single hull, an AC72 will be faster and more manoeuvrable than anything seen before. It will also place new physical demands on its sailors.

AC72s will first sail in July 2013 during the Louis Vuitton Cup, whose winner will become the challenger that takes on Oracle Racing in the America's Cup. In the run-up to that, however, teams have been racing in six entirely new regattas, which together form what Mr Ellison has christened the America's Cup World Series. Three of these races took place in 2011, and the rest will happen this year. Besides stimulating interest in sailing ahead of the America's Cup, the new regattas form part of the training and preparation for it. They feature smaller catamarans, known as AC45s (pictured), which are testing the skills of their five-person crews and generating plenty of buzz. A YouTube clip showing Oracle Racing capsize during training has already garnered 1.5m views.

The America's Cup World Series has also forced refereeing to improve. AC45s travel at speeds of up to 40 miles (64km) per hour, and umpires have needed jet skis to keep up. That makes it hard for them to communicate using flags. Instead, the organisers have installed onboard cameras to help spot infractions and used radio headsets to communicate with crews. Rather than execute a 360-degree turn, which would be too dangerous at high speeds, a competitor breaking the rules must slow down temporarily as a penalty. Organisers have also been testing sensors that can accurately measure the positions of boats on the race course.

Broadcasters are benefiting from the capabilities of the new boats, which can perform in a range of conditions, unlike the single hulls used in previous America's Cup races. A deal with YouTube has seen racing broadcast live on the internet, with overlaid graphics used to explain the finer points of sailing tactics. General sports fans bored by the slow pace of previous America's Cup races seem to have been attracted to the shorter, faster events. Indeed, despite the poor conditions at the first regatta in Cascais, Portugal, where the absence of a breeze made sailing difficult, the America's Cup World Series has drawn large audiences so far—both at the venues themselves and on television. If the popularity carries over to the main event, it might even last another 160 years.

It is disappointing that the Economist has published what is simply a puff-piece for the America's Cup Event Authority (ACEA), the body that has been created to market the event.

The proposition that the 34th America's Cup will be uniquely fair to challengers does not bear scrutiny. In choosing a completely new class of boat, in which only his team had previous experience, Larry Ellison has tilted the playing ground firmly in his favour. As holder of the Cup it is his privilege to do so but such behaviour is more in the realms of the cut and thrust of business than of sporting values.

Unfortunately the claim that general sports fans have been drawn towards the America's Cup World Series (ACWS) lies in the realms of hope rather than present reality. In fact it has been widely commented in the sailing media that the most recent regatta at San Diego passed virtually unacknowledged by both locals and sailing fans.

In launching this costly makeover of the America's Cup in the teeth of economic slow-down, challenger teams have struggled to interest sponsors and there is every likelihood that the number of challengers entering the qualification rounds for the Cup will be the lowest in recent history. ACEA has struggled to find venues prepared to pony-up the rumoured $5M event fee and questions are beginning to be asked in the city of San Francisco as to the claimed return on investment when the likely number of challengers and spectators are now far lower than originally expected.

"The most significant change, though, is a requirement that competing yachts be the same design" is simply incorrect. The AC45 used in the ACWS are one-designs but the AC72s to be used in the America's Cup itself are not.

While this writer has enjoyed the spectacle of the ACWS both in person and through YouTube, the overall picture is not nearly as rosy as the article is painting.